I have a couple of videos covering things you should know about industrial design as a student on my channel. Feel free and check them out if you time. Also, let me know what you think, or if you have any other topics you would like me to cover.

Also, i'm really trying hard to get my videos out there to as many eyes as possible, so if you can help me out with that, it would be great appreciated. Any comments that you post here, I would love it if you could copy and paste them into the comment section on youtube. It would help me out greatly and i'm more active on youtube than I am here. Thanks so much!

JimmyHuynh wrote:Do you have that classroom competitor you want to out perform?

Nope, we're all in the class to learn together and from each other. The only person I want to outperform is myself.

While thats a great attitude to have. I do think a healthy competitive environment is important. The stronger the studio the stronger everyone gets.

If you have a rock star designer throwing up 5 extra awesome sketches every class. And you usually do three 3 extra. Well in order to outperform yourself you only need to do 4. Well guess what you just got beat.

A competitive atmosphere pushes you further than you though was possible. Sure you may be up to 3am getting it done, but in the end you got it done.

You can out preform yourself, or you can push yourself to areas you didn't think you could go. Because in the end, when your getting hired, its not you against you. It's you against every other industrial designer (applying to that job) out there.

This can be good or bad, I remember the year ahead of ours they didn't talk with each other everything was secretive, they constantly covered their work and usually wouldn't work in the studio if another class mate was there or ever offer help. (and our professors pointed this out as well.

Our Class saw this and thought it was a pretty empty way to be a class. We had a wide range of abilities and we competed with each other in the sense that we strive to achieve the level of those who where better in the various skill sets. Even during student competitions (which was where the class above us showed some ugly behavior) I remember working on a sketch and have the "sketch God" in hour class see that i was struggling, he came over offered me some tips and then showed me execution techniques. In turn i also probably tutored half the class in CAD throughout our 4 years. In the end we graduate as one of the strongest class the school had seen in a long long time.

Healthy competition to push your self to strive to be better is great and if it isn't promoted in the class room then it carries over afterwards which does not create a healthy design dept. anywhere (which i have seen as well)

i think that is the way to do it Chevis. When I was in school there was a camaraderie where people helped each other, but also a frankness that helped push each other. I remember being in criss where another student would say "you can do better than this I think". And the professors were pretty clear with who had the best work in the class that day. I remember being in a class where a prof ripped me to shreds, to the point of holding back some tears really. I worked so hard the next few weeks and in the next review he said I had "the project by which all others will be judged today".... anyway, healthy competition is great. If it goes to far it can be destructive. A lack of it and people under perform.

JimmyHuynh wrote:Do you have that classroom competitor you want to out perform?

Nope, we're all in the class to learn together and from each other. The only person I want to outperform is myself.

Hey whats up Longhorngreenback!That's a great way to think about it. For the biggest competitor is always about testing how hard you're willing to work to achieve your goals! Personally, I have found it to be even extra motivating to do even better if I have a secret competitor. Always keeps me on my feet and alert.

Hey whats up Longhorngreenback!That's a great way to think about it. For the biggest competitor is always about testing how hard you're willing to work to achieve your goals! Personally, I have found it to be even extra motivating to do even better if I have a secret competitor. Always keeps me on my feet and alert.[/quote]

I've always had "secret competitors - those individuals who out perform me in a skill set that i want. I follow them i try and learn from them in the hopes i will either rise to their level / surpass them or simply see the professional gain from myself. And it is not always design. I use to work with a designer when i was fresh out of school who when in meetings would make comments and the entire room would stop/listen/ and ponder his thoughts. He truly managed the audience. and i thought to myself "I want to be that Designer"

The tone of the video really rubs me the wrong way. The first bit about designers being passionate, creative, etc - the design discipline hardly has a monopoly on those characteristics, and it's offputting when you hear inexperienced student designers expound that BS and believe it. Design is about collaborating with lots of creative people in lots of disciplines - recognizing their creativity and ability to contribute - and working together as a team to solve ill-defined problems. There's no room for divas, and that view - that designers are unique, special snowflakes - encourages insufferable diva behavior. While there is a small bit of useful and obvious advice in the video (yes, you should know how to present your work in a way that highlights the useful parts of the solution), it feels like the approach it promotes prioritizes style over substance, which is not helpful.

If you have a rock star designer throwing up 5 extra awesome sketches every class. And you usually do three 3 extra. Well in order to outperform yourself you only need to do 4. Well guess what you just got beat.

A competitive atmosphere pushes you further than you though was possible. Sure you may be up to 3am getting it done, but in the end you got it done.

If the assignment is 20 sketches, and you produce excellent work and also get sleep...I think the guy that did less, did well, and slept won. File under: time management/expectation management.

bcpid wrote:If the assignment is 20 sketches, and you produce excellent work and also get sleep...I think the guy that did less, did well, and slept won. File under: time management/expectation management.

While thats true and important in the working world, where your trying to balance life and work. At some point you gotta put in the 10,000 hours to get good at your craft. College is where the is easiest and most encouraged to happen. If you're comfortable in college your not growing. (But maybe that view was skewed by knowing I was paying hundred of dollars a credit hour to be there.) But to me the guy who pushed himself and is better because of it wins in the end. It's a marathon not a sprint.

I remember one professor (Sooshin) at DAAP giving his advice. "If you have a girlfriend and she asks you for one rose, do you give her just one rose? No you give her a bouquet. " Something like that. In college this is totally true where your trying to get better/faster.

When your in the real world all I care is that you can deliver the work in the hours allotted. But in order to do that you gotta put in the practice to get good, then fast and eventually efficient.

If your fast/efficient/good in college then your the superstar everyones trying to catch.

I remember one professor (Sooshin) at DAAP giving his advice. "If you have a girlfriend and she asks you for one rose, do you give her just one rose? No you give her a bouquet. " Something like that. In college this is totally true where your trying to get better/faster.

bcpid wrote:The tone of the video really rubs me the wrong way. The first bit about designers being passionate, creative, etc - the design discipline hardly has a monopoly on those characteristics, and it's offputting when you hear inexperienced student designers expound that BS and believe it. Design is about collaborating with lots of creative people in lots of disciplines - recognizing their creativity and ability to contribute - and working together as a team to solve ill-defined problems. There's no room for divas, and that view - that designers are unique, special snowflakes - encourages insufferable diva behavior. While there is a small bit of useful and obvious advice in the video (yes, you should know how to present your work in a way that highlights the useful parts of the solution), it feels like the approach it promotes prioritizes style over substance, which is not helpful.

If you have a rock star designer throwing up 5 extra awesome sketches every class. And you usually do three 3 extra. Well in order to outperform yourself you only need to do 4. Well guess what you just got beat.

A competitive atmosphere pushes you further than you though was possible. Sure you may be up to 3am getting it done, but in the end you got it done.

If the assignment is 20 sketches, and you produce excellent work and also get sleep...I think the guy that did less, did well, and slept won. File under: time management/expectation management.

I agree that designers have no monopoly on passion in the process. I've worked with dispassionate designers, and I've worked with very creative and passionate marketing people, engineers, and sales people. In a lot of cases the sales people I've worked with have been some of the most passionate and excited about new product. They can be the most difficult as well and I think it is because their very livelihood spend on how much they can sell of the things the NPD team has produced, so getting them onboard and excited is pretty key to success. I try to remember that a lot of times the sales guys got into this because they love this product category, so drawing on that common ground you can get places. But if you alienate them you just pound against a brick wall. I'm saying this based on mistakes I've made personally in this area. I didn't talk in an language that included them and i didn't listen enough and it contributed to a poor performing line that year insight of having a clear insight based on user needs/desires.

bcpid wrote:If the assignment is 20 sketches, and you produce excellent work and also get sleep...I think the guy that did less, did well, and slept won. File under: time management/expectation management.

While thats true and important in the working world, where your trying to balance life and work. At some point you gotta put in the 10,000 hours to get good at your craft. College is where the is easiest and most encouraged to happen. If you're comfortable in college your not growing. (But maybe that view was skewed by knowing I was paying hundred of dollars a credit hour to be there.) But to me the guy who pushed himself and is better because of it wins in the end. It's a marathon not a sprint.

I remember one professor (Sooshin) at DAAP giving his advice. "If you have a girlfriend and she asks you for one rose, do you give her just one rose? No you give her a bouquet. " Something like that. In college this is totally true where your trying to get better/faster.

When your in the real world all I care is that you can deliver the work in the hours allotted. But in order to do that you gotta put in the practice to get good, then fast and eventually efficient.

If your fast/efficient/good in college then your the superstar everyones trying to catch.

I can get onboard with this. as you grow as a designer things appear to be more "intuitive" but the intuition is just experience multiplied by ability. The effect is this compounding sense for how to do things, but it takes a ton of hard work up front that a lot of folks are not willing to put in. Which is totally fine by the way. A team can't be stacked with all Michael Jordans. You need your super stars and your role players.